The Stranglers are a great British musical treasure. The legendary punk-era rockers have transcended the punk and new wave years, had top ten pop hits (Golden Brown, Strange Little Girl, Always the Sun & many more) and kept their grizzled edge for over half a century now. That’s a feat that’s almost unheard of in music.
For the past 25 years (26 now, in fact!), Baz Warne has played guitar for the band, and became the lead vocalist 6 years later. This means that 2026 marks two decades as frontman of one of Britain's best-loved and most notorious bands. Baz recently marked the occasion with the release of a new autobiography, No Grass Grows on a Busy Street. Written over the last 25 years, compiled together and annotated throughout with fresh, candid sections from today, it’s a reflective, wonderful read. An honest, no-BS account of the day-to-day life of a touring band, from the point of view of the guy on lead vocals and guitar. It’s a globe-trotting travelogue, a personal memoir and a diary of a life spent pursuing art and performance. Stranglers fans will lap it up of course, but this is one of those reads that will resonate with all music fans, whether they’ve toured themselves as musicians or not. There are celebrities, exotic cities and a fair amount of late nights to be enjoyed as Baz circumnavigates the globe with one of Britain's greatest bands.
(Photo: John Dewhirst)
Last week, I had the pleasure of catching up with Baz to discuss not only the book but his ongoing obsession with guitars! I enjoyed an excellent conversation with him on Zoom, and you can read the transcribed piece below. Stick on your favourite Stranglers album, grab yourself a glass of something strong and tasty, and settle in for this exclusive chat with The Stranglers’ own Baz Warne…
The Book: No Grass Grows on a Busy Street
GG: I really enjoyed your book, Baz! One of the things I noticed early on was that, prior to you joining the Stranglers, you had already toured the US and Europe, at the age of 19! I wonder, looking back, was that experience important to you in terms of developing a work ethic and an attitude towards being a musician?
Baz Warne: Undoubtedly. I’ve often said that if it wasn’t for those Toy Dolls tours…the guy who ran it was really serious and ran a tight ship. Joining that band at such a young age and doing all of those American and European dates certainly helped. I saw very early on - bear in mind this was the early 1980s - I saw what you could achieve if you just stuck in. And balanced it with trying to enjoy it as well, that’s the thing. No one likes being in the boot camp, there has to be an enjoyment factor. But definitely: it was an early and steep learning curve and I was very appreciative at the time.
GG: Many 19 year olds wouldn’t have the discipline or the maturity to do that. Do you reckon you had those qualities innately within you already?
BW: Yeah, I think you’ve got to have a certain element of it in you. I mean, you can’t teach people that, you know? I was lucky that the two lads in the band were a little older than me. Once I joined, we got super, super tight, especially for three little punk lads! We just went along with it and it was great fun. I’m grateful for it. I was just a boy!
"When we played the Royal Albert Hall, I looked across and saw this mane of silvery white hair and black eyebrows. The light changed and I thought, 'Christ! It's Jimmy Page!'"
GG: Yeah, it’s impressive! A good start. Now, the book’s format is interesting: it’s quite significantly made up of road diaries and blogs for the Stranglers website, with your candid thoughts from today at the end of each section. I thought that was a great way to describe the life of a travelling musician. The reflective parts at the end were the parts I liked the best, actually: the stories followed by what you think of them now. Was that an important part of the whole idea for you?
BW: Yeah, you’re not the first person to say that, Ray, I must be honest! That element of it came about purely by accident. The first blog in there is from 2004 and it’s the only one that includes the Stranglers as a five-piece. I actually didn’t even have that, and I was raking through some old bike cases and found this reporter’s pad. The whole account of the Norfolk Coast French tour from 2004 was in there, hand-written with all the dates bar the last three. I can’t remember why I didn’t finish it (laughs) but I thought, well, there isn’t an account in here that includes us as a five piece with Paul. I decided to type it up and I knew I’d have to explain how I came about finding it. I was pleased because it set the tone for the rest of the book. After I had it, I thought, okay, that’s warts and all. I wrote that in those hotel rooms, on that tour, that time ago.
(Photo: John Dewhirst)
GG: It can’t help but be authentic.
BW: Yeah, exactly. And I decided that I had to explain it, and when I sent it to the editor, he replied saying: you know what? The end bit is fascinating. You should do that for every chapter. I thought, well bloody hell, there’s forty chapters! (laughs) So that added another two months on to the time! I’d already looked through all the rest of it, so I had to approach every chapter like the first one. For me personally as well, my thoughts on going back to those and looking at them again 20-odd years later, it was interesting to see how my thought processes were then and how they differed now.
There’s a few things in there that I wish I hadn’t said! (laughs) But I thought, no, no, no: that’s the tone of it. If I go around changing too much, it would lose the spontaneity that I felt it had.
GG: Two of the words that kept coming through to me as I read it were ‘realness’ - which you’ve really just spoken about - and ‘travelogue’. It almost feels like a piece of travel writing to me, because you are so often on the road all over the world. Were those themes intentional in terms of how you viewed the ongoing piece?
BW: Do you mean the everyday workings of a band on the road?
GG: Yeah, that sort of constant moving into different and exotic places, the almost constant homelessness of the pirates aboard the pirate ship, if you get me?
BW: Yeah, we often look at ourselves - and I’m sure a lot of touring bands do - as a lone entity, if you like, in your bubble. It’s you against the world, and even a seasoned professional band like The Stranglers, we still feel like that. I read a book a few years ago by Grace Maxwell, who was Edwyn Collins’ wife. I know Edwyn pretty well, and the book was called The Restoration of Edwyn Collins, all about the journey they took from his aneurysm to get him back to some semblance of fitness. The way that she’d written it was just…she’s Glaswegian and it was so personable. I saw Grace and when she asked me how my book was coming along, I said, I have to thank you for inspiration, because when I read your book, that’s the way that I always feel and write anyway. She’s so easy to get along with and it reflects on the page.
When I’ve read things back that I’ve written, I look at it and go, well, you know what? That’s how you feel! If you water it down and dilute it, people are gonna know. JJ Burnel’s always been a real champion as well, saying ‘I feel like I can hear you saying these things, Baz. It’s not like I’m reading something that’s alien to me’. Keeping it real, is what I suppose I’m trying to say!
It’s 25 years with the Stranglers and at the time, it was something I felt I had to do. After about a month of looking at it, I felt like it was something I wanted to do. It didn’t come easy, sitting there writing about myself! And trying not to be too cheesy or showbiz or whatever: trying to find some kind of balance where you let people know who you are without going up your own backside!
GG: That’s one of the most interesting things about reading this: obviously, you and I have just met, but I do feel familiar with you just from reading the book this last week or two. I feel like I already know you somewhat.
BW: That’s nice, that’s what I hoped to achieve so I’m pleased about that. Thank you for saying that.
GG: Not at all, it definitely comes through! On that note, one of the things I noticed most from reading the book - more so than the travel, the late nights, even the music itself - I feel like the personal relationships you have with the people you meet is a really significant thing for you. It certainly seems that way from reading it, and I don’t just mean the band members: I mean the crew, the fans - even having tea with Debbie Harry - all of the people that you meet on your way. Am I picking that up correctly? Is the relationship thing the most important?
BW: You absolutely are! Without those people - the crew, the fans and everything else - and I know it's a cliche, but without them all, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do. And also, the road crew are an extension of us. Here’s another cliche but when you tour on the road, you’re a family. On some of the earlier tours with me in the band, we lived on a tour bus for weeks and weeks, even Jet Black, we all lived on the bus. It’s very important for me to be able to rub along with people, and for people to be able to rub along with me.
There are some very prickly, very awkward people who are supremely talented and who have made glittering careers out of things, and yet when it comes to people - a one-on-one thing - they are just so horrifically (laughs) unprepared! To me, it’s all part and parcel or what I do, and it’s just life. I happen to be a lucky bloke who plays guitar in a really great, famous band. I’ve been there for quarter of a century; I’m hoping that I’ve put some kind of stamp on it of my own, and that’s really about as far as you can go!
(Photo: John Dewhirst)
GG: The Debbie Henry story is great.
BW: She’s a lovely lady! She was sitting in a room and I needed some water for my tea. I walked past her room and there was a kettle steaming behind her. I said, ‘can I have some water for my tea?’ and she said, ‘Why don’t you come in honey and take tea with me?’ That’s what she said! So I sat with her for about an hour, and you’re just thinking, well, it’s Debbie Harry! And then you just go, well, it’s an attractive blonde lady sitting down with her tea.
GG: It’s like her iconic status is separate to her as a person.
BW: Yeah, absolutely. I know a lot of people say you shouldn’t meet your heroes, and maybe that’s what they’re talking about: you meet people and they are just not what you’re expecting them to be. Not that I’m alluding to being anyone’s hero! But I’d like to think that when anyone comes to talk to me and meet me, I don’t just turn people off and have them walk away going ‘what an absolute tool that bloke is!’, you know? That would cause me more sleepless nights than anything, to be honest.
GG: I have a feeling that won’t happen when people meet you. Talking about meeting famous people, I love that story about playing in the Royal Albert Hall and seeing Jimmy Page in the audience giving you a thumbs up! Talk about mission accomplished?!
BW: (laughs) That was so surreal! When you play there, the seats come right round; it’s like you’re in the bosom of the crowd. I looked across and saw this mane of silvery white hair with black eyebrows. The light changed and I thought ‘Christ! It’s Jimmy Page!’ Haha! Yeah, he was just sitting there! I mean, he’s just a bloke, isn’t he?
GG: He’s just another guy! Haha!
BW: Aye, it’s all part of life’s rich pageant!
GG: Indeed! Now, before we move on to the guitar chat, one last thing. You have been The Stranglers’ lead vocalist for over 20 years, so first of all: congratulations! Now, my question is a two-part one: how does that all feel? But also, do you still have to tolerate folk who won’t accept that Hugh Cornwell left the band 35 years ago?
BW: Like you wouldn’t believe. (laughs) I remember Jet Black used to say in interviews ‘we didn’t expect to be around for 40 minutes, never mind 40 years!’. No is the simple answer to that one, though. I joined as a guitar player, I enjoyed every minute of the 6 years where I stood at the side and just played all these classic songs, and wrote some other ones of our own which quickly became accepted. I suppose the analogy would be ‘new blood’. Like anything - a football team or whatever - someone comes in and kicks everybody up the arse, you know! I’ve been told that’s what happened and I suppose there’s an element of truth in that.
When it came time to look for a new singer, they kinda just looked to me. It’s all explained in the book as well, but we’d rehearse as a four piece before the singer arrived sometimes, and I do recall it sounded really good. When we left, I was asked ‘would you like to have a go?’ and we never really looked back.
(Photo: John Dewhirst)
When I first joined, Paul said to me: ‘whatever you do, don’t go online and read what people write about you’. All these bedroom warriors, and I still get that to this day, people sitting in their bedroom whining and refusing to move on. It is what it is. I’ve never done social media, and I still don’t. That’s one of the contributing reasons, really. There’s a Facebook account, but the only reason JJ and I have one is to counteract the fakes: there are so many fake Baz Warnes and JJ Burnels, all opening fake accounts. Two girls travelled a long way to meet ‘me’, and see us play - apparently on my say-so - and they got there and found it wasn’t true. They’d gotten completely scammed. That’s just one instance.
So anyway, people still miss old Hugh, and, well, go and see him if you miss him! (laughs)
GG: It’s a funny one, isn’t it? The Stranglers have moved on, and Hugh’s moved on, so…
BW: But other people can’t. Yeah. There’s not many people who’ll come up and say this to your face because they’re not brave enough - never! - and if anybody does have the balls to do that then I will gladly have a conversation with them. But when these little blokes in darkened rooms with the curtains drawn at one o’clock in the morning are thinking of things to whine about…I mean, they are a minority, but it’s often the minority that people take the most notice of, especially the more hurtful and damning they get, they more people react. But I don’t see it. My wife does all that and she just keeps it to herself unless there’s something really nasty, and thankfully that hasn’t happened for a few years now.
GG Good! Glad to hear it!
Baz and His Guitars
GG: Baz, all of the years of me playing guitars, fixing guitars, gigging and touring with guitars…I have never known of a black Telecaster that turns grey when it gets rained on! That’s what I read in your book: what’s all that about?
BW: Well, it’s either something in my sweat (laughs) like there was in Rory Gallagher’s, or there’s something in the finish. My is a bog-standard ‘76: it has had extensive work done, the pickups are all custom wound, it’s had a couple of regrets, but it's been with me right through the whole thing. When I sweat at some of these hot gigs (many of which are spoken of in the book - Ray), you look down and you see these little rivers of white. It looks a bit unsavoury actually (laughs), running down the front of the guitar. Jet used to say, ‘It must’ve been a hot gig: look at the state of Baz’s guitar’!
(Photo: John Dewhirst)
One gig a few years ago on the beach in Cornwall, the rain was biblical but we finally got the thumbs up to go on stage, and when I crossed to pick up my guitar, I thought: ‘That’s not mine!’ It was completely grey - apart from the scratchplate, which stays the same colour - just through fine mist bouncing off it for twenty minutes before we came onstage. I’ve never heard of it either, it’s a strange phenomenon! But honest to God, it’s true.
GG: I love it! Did you say it was a ‘76 Tele?
BW: Yeah.
GG: So, I might have my Fender facts wrong, but I’m thinking…if it’s a ‘76, it might’ve been in the era when CBS were finishing them with polyurethane instead of nitrocellulose. I wonder if that’s got something to do with it? I dunno?
BW: Maybe it is! All I know is that I’ve been offered some endorsements and was quite keen to play something British, but I haven’t found anything that can compare with my old ‘76. I had a guitar tech a few years ago who made it his mission in life to sit with that guitar every day before I even arrived and just make sure that it’s perfect. You hear folk saying ‘it’s an extension of myself’! Well, it is! Otherwise I would’ve played something else! I have him to thank for that.
"We often look on ourselves as a lone entity: it's you against the world, and even a long-seasoned band like The Stranglers, we still feel like that."
The Stranglers bought me a Telecaster as a welcome to the band gift but it was a six-saddle job. I couldn’t get on with it so that got auctioned off somewhere. I bought a ‘77 which weighed about the same as a Mini Metro, the heaviest guitar I’ve ever played in my life! I still have that somewhere. Somebody threw a pint of beer at me at a gig somewhere and I lost my temper and threw that guitar at the end of the show. I snapped the headstock of it, and how you can snap the headstock off a Fender, I do not know. It’s not an easy thing to do, but I did it! It was repaired, so it’s still in the land of the living now, but I very rarely use it.
But I’ve got to show you this (goes and collects a lovely vintage Tele): I recently got my hands on a lovely ‘64 Tele. Still got the cigarette burn on it.
GG: Aw, Baz, is that the type of Tele you were mentioning in your book, that you always wanted? A ‘64?
BW: Yeah, and I’ve just got it! The checking and the finish is just fantastic, and it has three saddles, which is what I’ve always played. Teles are my thing, but I’ve got a few other guitars. I’ve got an old Seventies Strat, a couple of Les Pauls - a black ‘79 Custom and an SG - I wouldn’t exactly call myself a collector because I use everything I’ve got, but if I see something that’s desirable, then I’ll certainly have a go at getting it.
GG: See your main Stranglers Tele, did I notice that it has a sort of rails humbucker in the bridge position?
BW: Yeah, that’s an interesting story actually. We were on the road one year, and I’d sweated the pickup off (laughs), which I know does happen from time to time. We’d managed to limp through and make it work, but eventually we reached an Aberdeen venue called the Beach Ballroom. The guitar tech said to me, I’m gonna go see about getting a new pickup, maybe a hot rail or a stacked humbucker. I said I would like a Telecaster pickup, maybe wound a little hotter. Nothing too over the top: I still need that Tele twang and I still need it to thin out when I want it to, all that sort of thing.
So, when we got to Aberdeen, we went online to see if there was anybody locally, and there was a fellah called Graham Mennie. Kineller guitars. We went to his house, and talk about a cottage industry? At the time, this guy was fixing guitars on an ironing board in his conservatory through the back! He custom wound me a pair of pickups there and then, stuck them into the guitar so that I could get through the next few shows. I plugged it into what I was using at the time, which was two Marshall heads - a (JCM)900 and an 800 - and it was just like silk, honestly. I said to the guy: ‘leave them where they are, I’m keeping them!’
(Photo: John Dewhirst)
I got in touch with Graham, he came to a couple of shows and we wouldn’t take any money. All he asked was that I’d endorse it and call it the Bazbucker. He fitted them into the ‘77 that I was telling you about - that I broke - and he sent a handful of them down just before the 50th Anniversary tour. His pickups are just wonderful. They’ve got so much grunt and bite, but they still sound like a Fender Tele. It's hard to describe. I’m really, really pleased with them.
GG: Fantastic, I love that! The Bazbucker! So, geek questions here: what string gauge do you prefer, and what plectrums do you like using?
BW: I’ve always used Dunlop Nylon .73mm plectrums because of what they’re made of. I don’t like the tortoiseshell ones. I like these once they’ve been in your fingers for a while, they get a tiny bit more pliable as they heat up. I guess that’s just because I always used them, it’s got a nice grip and I’ve got about five million.
Strings-wise, back in the day before we got the deal with Elixirs, I used to use Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinkys, with a heavier bottom end. I got used to that on the Telecasters but then I gravitated onto tens, just normal ten gauge. When I got that ‘64 that I just showed you, that came with 9s and I realised how thin and twangy it was, so I sent it to a guy who’s a real pukka vintage guitar guy and he set it up for me with tens on. It’s just magic.
GG: Excellent! And what about acoustic guitars?
BW: For acoustics, I got myself a really nice 70s Gibson Dove when I turned 60 in 2024. I always wanted to buy a guitar from Hank’s in Denmark Street (laughs) just to say that I had! I bought this old Gibson Dove, that looked like somebody had loved it, it was well looked after.
But yeah, my main acoustic squeeze is a J-45 which I’ve had from new for 15 or more years. I just love them! Don’t you love them? There’s just something about them. I got a mug from my kids at Christmas that says ‘You can never have too many guitars’, and you can’t!
GG: Good kids!
BW: Fantastic kids! (laughs)
GG: So, in your book, I read a lot about your Marshalls, and I didn’t realise you were a Kemper guy now. So, is it those Marshalls that you’ve modelled? And also, what do you use for the more unusual tones such as the solo on Strange Little Girl?
BW: When I first got the Kempers, which is like the flight deck of a 747 when you first get it - I must confess to this day that I’m not 100% sure of how it all works! Thank god for the cracking guitar tech that I’ve got. He changes my settings from the side of the stage now, so I barely need to touch the pedals. But the idea was: do you want to model it? We’ll set up your Marshall stacks in the room and profile them? And I’m like, surely to god there must be something in there already: there must be 50 Marshalls! As a professional guitar player, if you can’t find a sound that suits you from such a high-tech, sophisticated piece of equipment, then you want your head looking at! (laughs)
I like to take my In-ear monitors out at the end of a soundcheck and walk out into the hall when there’s no one there and hear what the guitar sounds like through the rig, and it’s bitchin’! It’s an absolutely great guitar sound! It’s got power, it’s got lots of dynamics, but it’s unmistakably a Telecaster.
For Strange Little Girl, it’s a rotary effect, kinda like an old-fashioned Leslie speaker. And those effects on the Kemper - particularly the chorus effects when it goes into stereo in your ears, it’s just massive! And it gives the front-of-house engineer total control. I mean, JJ Burnel’s not known for playing quiet bass! He was using a great wall of Trace Elliot stuff and it was thunderous! So these days, all four of us are on IEMs, so if you come to the side of the stage and watch us, you’ll hear the drums and a little bit of sidefill. In our ears, it sounds like an orchestra! What’s important is what comes out the front, you know? And our guy has won a couple of awards for front-of-house sound, he never gets anything but the highest of accolades from everyone who hears us.
"I happen to be a lucky bloke who plays guitar in a really great, famous band."
I’ve probably been using Kempers now for 6 or 7 years. The only thing that can be a bit iffy about them for me is the foot controllers. They are kinda for studios, and I put my size 12 Doc Martens all over them! We’ve got two or three of those, and we have to cover them in plastic so they don’t get wet at festivals. But ultimately, it’s a wonderful system. When we’re flying in for gigs in other parts of the world, we just take one Kemper and clone it at the other end for a spare, so you’ve got the same sound all over the world. When I first joined the band, it was rented amps everywhere and sometimes it could be a real chore to get a decent working sound. That’s all gone.
GG: That’s good news all round, really! Now Baz, the book is out, and the tour is due to start soon. Then is it back to Stranglers duty?
BW: Yeah, the first show is Glasgow in a place called Cottiers on Friday 6th February. And then it goes south, and that’ll take me through to the end of March. Then we’ve got some rehearsals in May and the gigs start in earnest in June. Then some German dates as well, and a big French tour, and that brings me to the end of the year. No British tours for the Stranglers this year, but we are doing Kelvingrove Bandstand in June for two nights! We’ve got Cardiff castle, a nice bug festival in Scarborough with the Sex Pistols…we say we’re gonna have a quiet year and it never works out! I get home from a tour and I spend ten days lying around stinking and doing nothing (laughs), slowly coming back to earth again. After a fortnight, JJ and I get on the phone and go ‘I’m really looking forward to doing it again!’
As you can tell, Baz was an excellent, entertaining chap to speak with. It’s great to see that the fire burns as brightly for him now as it ever has. I suppose that is the real key to the band’s enduring success: a love for the work & lifestyle, and the commitment to getting on with the work in hand. It's an inspirational story for us all, wherever we are at with our musical careers.
Baz’s book, No Grass Grows on a Busy Street, is available now in hardback from all major retailers, and you can get more info on his book tour - and the Stranglers’ gigging schedule for 2026 - on the official Stranglers website. My thanks go out to Baz himself for such an enjoyable experience, and to Jayne from Excess Press, John Dewhirst for the great pics and John Buchanan for the guidance.
